


Show Your Bones

by hairdye_silverfindings



Category: Original Work
Genre: Wendigo myth, expository piece on Ryan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-28
Updated: 2015-12-28
Packaged: 2018-05-10 01:27:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 670
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5563429
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hairdye_silverfindings/pseuds/hairdye_silverfindings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An other funeral.<br/>An other reception.<br/>History, friends, family.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Show Your Bones

**Author's Note:**

> Just a little character piece on an original character. If you like it let me know.

Coeur D'Alene, Idaho. She hadn't seen this place in years. Not since high school. And yet here it was. The main street and the little shops and the river and the house and the cemetary. The town had changed, the ice cream shop closed, the ReStore replaced with a Planet Fitness but the house was the same. It still over looked the lake and the boats that bobbed at the end of the dock, the green lawn that was still so well manicured, the pine tress that creaked in the breeze as she ripped her way up the gravel drive. It was still all the same. She remembered the steps and the glass windows and Rhianna Wallace held her chin high as she stepped through the front door. There was a moment of silence and she spotted her bother in the mists of it, tall and buttoned up in black before she moved her way through the whispers. People were dressed like shadows, dark shifting shapes from her childhood as she moved up the stairs and away from the reception. There was a floral wreath that stunk with the sweetness of death and a photo of their step-father, smiling. She knew the original that it was cropped out of, she knew he was smiling because he had just made a deal with a new developer. He had never smiled like that around his step-children.

She made her way up the stairs, away from the polite mourning downstairs, up, up, up, until she reached the steps to the attic. A few more moments and she stood in the dust at the top of the house. The dust silenced everything and Ryan took a moment to let the silence sink over her. It was just a moment though, too much of the peace would make her forget why she was here. There was a desk, her old desk, and in the desk was a photo, an old photo, from high school, just before graduation, when she was stupid. Carefully she lifted the photo up, holding it close to her as she examined the faces. Her, Avery, Julie, Ellis. A muscle in Ryan's jaw jumped.

The night in the cemetery was like flaking paint. The details were starting to disappear, but Ryan remembered the facts. Senior year. A camping trip to the cemetery. Julie's funeral. Ellis in the hospital. That year their graduation speeches had been about survival and grief. Tragedy. Ryan knew what had really happened, what had really attacked them in the cemetery that night. She knew because she had burned the bones before it could hurt Avery.

“I didn't think you were gonna come.”

Ryan chuckled as she turned to see her brother. “I needed to get some stuff.” She explained, grabbing up the last of the photos from the drawer and tucking them into her bag. “Avery is missing.” She said quietly, looking up to see him move closer. She could still see the skeleton under his skin, the way he had looked nearly 9 years ago in the woods. Those details were more clear, Chippewa National Park, her brother, her friends, the van, the blood, the cold dirt, rotting leaves and rotting flesh, the taste of leaves, the taste of flesh. It all added up to one thing, one word, one creature.

Wendigo.

Julian frowned and nodded, looking down at the desk.

“You're going looking for her?”

“Of course. I can't add her name to the list.”

“Stop by the hotel later, I'll give you some supplies.”

Ryan nodded and tucked hair behind her ear. She gently patted her older brother's inked hand.

In the car she pulled her journal out, tucking the photo from high school into the pages. She looked down at the names on the page, Julie, Ellis, Jax, Kate. She would not add her best friend to that list. Driving made her feel a little better. But still she remembered the cemetery and the woods and every dark cold nightmare creature she'd killed since.


End file.
